‘About that night?’
He turns to Strover again, keen to let her lead the conversation, allowing him to watch Kate more closely, read her responses.
‘It seems you stopped off at a pub on the way home,’ Strover says.
Kate flinches. ‘We’ve been through this,’ she says. ‘I don’t remember anything, not even leaving the office that night. It had been a pretty shit week.’
Silas had worked her to the bone. The results were coming thick and fast. And then she’d seen Jake on camera with another woman. A shit week, as she says.
‘Where did I go?’ she asks.
‘The Bluebell in Rockbourne,’ Strover says. ‘It’s about halfway between Gablecross and the canal.’
Kate glances up at them both, seemingly surprised. ‘I went there a few times, towards the end. To clear my head.’ She looks down. ‘But I don’t remember going that night.’
She’s holding something back, Silas is sure of it.
‘You ordered an Aperol spritz,’ Strover continues, seeking approval from her boss.
Silas nods.
‘Look, we all know I’d had a drink before the accident,’ Kate says. ‘And we all know why I needed one.’
Her eyes have a hint of accusation in them. Silas turns away. He pushed the team too hard, he accepts that now. He turns to face her again.
‘Why did you choose the Bluebell?’ he asks.
Kate looks up at him, guilt in her eyes. Christ, his suspicions are right.
‘I should never have been there,’ she says. ‘It was a stupid idea. I was frustrated when we were pulled off the county lines job, wanted to prove a connection with the modern slavery gang we were investigating.’
Silas sighs, shaking his head. As he feared, Kate visited the pub to identify someone. She was a civilian, not a detective, with no legal powers to investigate. ‘So you went there to make a spot,’ he says.
‘I know it wasn’t my job…’
‘Wasn’t your job?’ Silas can’t help himself, despite Strover throwing another look of disapproval at him. ‘You were acting completely illegally. Putting yourself in grave danger.’
‘I didn’t think it would do any harm,’ Kate says. ‘I just sat at the bar, watched who came in and out, that’s all. I’d overheard you talking about the place, that it might be a drugs pub.’
‘How often did you visit?’ he asks, more calmly now. Kate was always impulsive, never a great respecter of rules.
‘Twice, maybe three times, I can’t remember.’
‘You should have told us.’
He’d suspected that she’d stopped to have a drink somewhere, given the alcohol found in her blood, but they’d never established where. There are a lot of pubs between Swindon and the canal. He can’t be too hard on her. She nearly died, spent months in recovery.
‘I didn’t recognise anyone,’ she adds.
But someone recognised her. Silas watches as Strover produces an A4 photo from the folder and slides it onto the table.
‘You didn’t recognise this man, then?’ Strover says. ‘The barman who served you a drink that night?’
Kate picks up the photo, the blood draining from her face. Silas leans forward, watching her intently.
‘You OK?’ Strover asks, resting a hand on Kate’s forearm.
‘What is it?’ Silas asks. Something’s very wrong. ‘Do you recognise him?’
Kate puts the photo down on the table.
‘I do now.’
‘You do?’ Silas glances at Strover, who looks equally surprised. Neither of them was expecting this. Does Kate remember him from the modern slavery investigation?
‘How do you know him?’ he asks as Strover pulls out her notepad.
‘Because he’s in the village,’ she says, her eyes moistening. ‘And I think he spiked my coffee yesterday.’
31
Jake
Jake looks for the key under the flowerpot at the back of Bex’s house. It’s a small thatched estate cottage, on the edge of the village. He’s been there many times with Kate, particularly in the early days, before the book deals dried up and Bex started to give him a hard time for not earning more money.
A black cat comes up to him, rubbing against his legs. He doesn’t remember Bex having one. He leans down to stroke it, more shaken than he realises by the events of the past twelve hours.
He didn’t try to catch up with the man in the forest or ask him if he knew anything about his boat or the fire. He didn’t trust himself not to do something stupid. It was the sound of the striking match that set him off, bringing back memories of the flames dancing down the towpath. Of course it wasn’t him – it would be too risky to hang around the next day, given the number of police in the area – but Jake is haunted by what he was told once, how arsonists like to return to the scene of their crime.
After finding the key and letting himself into the house, he gives Bex a call.
‘Does the mog need feeding?’ he asks. He stopped it coming in through the back door.
‘Not mine,’ Bex says. ‘Give it milk if you’re feeling soft.’
‘Just wanted to say thanks,’ Jake says, looking around the small kitchen. It’s not much bigger than the galley on his boat. And the oven clock is wrong. He’ll have to fix that. So many friends have oven clocks flashing the incorrect time. It’s almost a fulltime job resetting them.
‘No worries,’ she says. ‘You OK?’
‘Is Kate with you?’ he asks, ignoring her question. Her sudden kindness is unsettling. With one hand, he opens the fridge, pulls out a plastic bottle of milk and looks around the kitchen. He takes a bowl from the drying rack and pours some milk into it.
Bex pauses before she answers. ‘Not right now.’
‘But you’re with her in Cornwall,’ he says, putting the bowl on the floor. He opens the back door and lets the cat in.
‘I was going to tell you yesterday, at the station…’
He remembers their frosty encounter on the platform. ‘So that’s why you didn’t want to talk to me.’
‘I was in a rush.’
‘I’m not checking up on you. Or Kate. None of my business. It’s just that I spoke to her last night. We haven’t talked for months. And then you texted me this morning.’
‘Kate was worried,’ Bex says. ‘We both were.’
‘But Rob isn’t down there now?’
‘He comes and goes,’ she says. ‘Busy man. Works hard, does Rob.’
Jake ignores the barbed comment, the implication that he’s a slacker. ‘Where are you?’ he asks as the line crackles with wind.
‘Walking Kate’s daft dog on the coast path.’
‘I didn’t know she had one.’ A sudden sadness wells up in him. Kate always wanted a dog, but he was never keen. Too many friends’ cars smelling of wet fur. There’s so much about her new life that he doesn’t know.
‘It’s easy to miss him,’ Bex says.
‘Where’s Kate, then?’
‘She’s with the police. Her old boss DI Hart and a female colleague. Did you know they were coming down?’